What Really Matters
by freeze1
Summary: Mimi's having a bad day over in New York, and desperately needs some cheering up. [Mimato]


A/N: Okay, this is essentially just a Mimato I wrote one day for the hell of it, just to see where it would go. I personally think it's pretty cute, and it captures what their relationship would be, were they in one. It's a lot of Mimi appreciation, a lot of Michael being sarcastic, and an adorable Yamato at the end. Enjoy!

**What Really Matters**

**A Mimato Fanfiction**

Mimi Tachikawa was not having a good day.

She stormed through the hallway, designer boots clunking against the white tiled floors in a way that greatly resembled a grizzly bear on the attack. Students scrambled out of her way, not wishing to get between her and her destination.

Or, at least, they would have been, had it not been twenty minutes after the bell. The hallway was completely silent, save for the long stream of insults she was muttering under her breath as she whipped around the corner.

The whole thing was Sora's fault entirely. Had she actually told her mother she was going out, Mimi wouldn't have been left on hold for two hours waiting for her friend to pick up the phone. Not only was her phone bill suffering, (her daddy had firmly explained that soon all further calls from New York to Japan would be coming out of her prom dress fund), but she had had absolutely no time to get ready. Her clothes didn't match her eyeshadow. Her boots didn't match her clothes. And her the messy ponytail that was her hair, which she hadn't gotten the chance to wash, was pretty much unsalvageable.

And now, she was late for a history exam consisting of around twenty percent of her quarter grade.

Perhaps the teacher wouldn't care. She was an old lady, she had papers to grade, she probably wouldn't even notice. Perhaps she would be sweet and kind, and remember what it felt like when she was a child, and let her off the hook. Maybe even let her stay after class to finish.

Mimi flung the door to room 24 open.

"Hi! I'm really sorry I'm late, there was a huge wardrobe, phone, mousse thing. I'm here now, though!"

The look on the teacher's face told her the day was only going to get worse.

"It couldn't have been that bad."

"I answered five problems."

"Five?! But there were fifty on the test! You should have had time for more than that…"

"I fell asleep halfway through."

Michael rolled his eyes at Mimi, who had buried her face in her science textbook. "If you were doing another one of those midnight face peel things, this would be the moment where I jump up on the desk and scream 'I told you so!'"

She shook her head, difficult to do from her position, and muttered something incoherent.

"What's that?"

She lifted her head. "It's not my fault!" she exclaimed. "I was up at FIVE THIRTY to call Sora, and she wasn't there, and then someone FINALLY has the decency to tell me two whole hours later, and then I had to get dressed, and then I had to walk all the way here, and plus I was up until one finishing the geometry project!"

Michael nodded, attempting to absorb what she was saying. "Sora…Sora's the cute one, right?"

She groaned. "No, Hikari's the one you think is cute. You called Sora 'boyish'."

"Right. And then you hit me."

"Right."

The two stopped talking as their science teacher strolled into the room and muttered something about taking out their toothpick projects. Mimi's face visibly brightened. She had worked long hours on her project, which was abnormal because Mimi very rarely put any effort into schoolwork. It had been carefully molded to resemble a gingerbread house, made entirely of toothpicks and coated with layers of nail polish.

She started digging through her lavender bag and then stopped, a horrified expression her face. She had put the little house on top of her books so that it wouldn't get damaged, but had completely forgotten about the water bottle she always threw in on warm days.

There, lying on her notebook was a gooey mess of broken toothpicks.

A high-pitched scream resonated through the halls.

"…Woah, did someone pee on you?"

Mimi silently cursed whoever thought it was a good idea to put Michael in all of her classes.

"No," she replied icily, "it's not. It's lemonade." She took her seat for math class, hoping that Michael would go talk to some of his other friends. But no, he seemed more interested in the huge yellow stain that now occupied her hundred dollar, cashmere blouse. That also happened to be white.

"You spilled lemonade on yourself?" He looked amused.

"I was explaining my math project for so long, I missed lunch. I haven't eaten since breakfast. I bought a lemonade. Some kid bumped into me. It spilled. I'm here. Go away." Michael smiled, and opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by the teacher.

"Mimi? May I have a word?"

Michael grinned, and excused himself from the conversation. Mimi groaned.

"Yes Mrs. Bradshaw?"

"Mimi," the woman continued, a perplexed expression on her face, "you didn't turn in your poetry assignment yesterday."

Poetry assignment. Poetry assignment. Oh, right. The one she hadn't written down in her notebook because the words "KILL TAICHI" had taken up too much room.

"Umm, you see, I was having some problems with a friend of mine, who had done something really stupid to upset his girlfriend, who's also a good friend of mine, and…"

The teacher cut her off. "Mimi, have you started the assignment yet?"

"No." At this point, there was no use arguing.

"You do realize that this is the third project you've failed to complete on time this quarter?"

"Yes."

The teacher sighed. "Mimi, I think it would be best if you visited with me over the spring vacation next week. The school will be open for the first four days, and I'll be here. We can work on your projects and perhaps salvage your grade."

Mimi froze. "V-vacation? You want me to come over vacation?"

Mrs. Bradshaw nodded.

"But I can't! I have plans!"

"You are currently receiving an F in this class, Mimi."

Her head was spinning. Combined with her wet shirt, rumbling stomach and the awful feeling she had whenever her outfit didn't work, it was all just too much to take.

"Excuse me," she muttered, and lurched out of her seat, grabbing her bag and making a bee-line for the door."

"Mimi, where do you think you're going?"

The whole class was staring at her.

"To the nurse," she explained hurriedly, "my stomach hurts. It must be cramps. I'll just get some Midol and be back in no time!"

Without waiting for an approval, she whipped out of the classroom. As she stormed down the hallway, she dug into her bag and whipped out a small, pink cell phone.

"You better be there, Yamato."

The phone rang once. Twice. Three times. She was about to lose hope when finally the beep signified that someone had picked up, and a hoarse voice whispered through the line.

"Hello?"

"Yamato!" She exhaled, leaning back against the wall. "Thank god you're there. I was worried you wouldn't pick up."

There was a shuffle, and a few incoherent mumbles, as though he was trying to figure out exactly what to say in response.

"Mimi?" he asked, finally.

"Yeah, it's me."

"Mimi, we've been over this. If it's one o'clock in New York, it's three in the morning here." He yawned, as if to emphasize his point.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, did I wake you up?"

"…No, why ever would you think that?"

She bit her lip. "I'm sorry, this was stupid. Do you want to go back to sleep? Should I call back later?"

He sighed, and there was some shuffling over the phone. "Meems, I'm already up. Is something wrong?"

She cradled the cell phone to her ear, and took a deep breath, before blurting the whole thing out. "EVERYTHING'S wrong! First off I called Sora this morning and her mom was all like "she's here, I'll get her" but then forgot about me!"

"Oh, yeah. She was at one of Taichi's soccer games."

"I was on hold for two hours! I didn't have any time to get ready!"

"You could have gotten ready while you were on hold."

She decided to ignore that. "And then I get to school, and I'm twenty minutes late for my history test and only answer five questions!"

"Oh," he said. "That's pretty bad. Did you study for it?"

She frowned. "Well, no…"

"So then, you probably wouldn't have done that much better had you been there on time."

"But then I went to math, and this cute little toothpick house that I made got completely squashed by my water bottle and I was up until so late working on it!"

"Did you carry it separately so that it wouldn't get damaged?"

"Well, no…but, but then I spilled lemonade all down the front of my shirt!" She proclaimed, trying to redeem the situation. "The one I bought at that boutique, remember?"

"That's why you shouldn't buy shirts that cost more than thirty dollars."

She nearly wailed. "And then my English teacher reminds me that I didn't do my poetry project but I had completely forgotten because she assigned it the week Taichi was being a total jerk to Sora and he made me forget to write it down!"

"So, you're blaming Taichi because you forgot to turn in your project?"

Mimi couldn't hold it back. She began to sob.

"Why aren't you helping me? You're just making me feel worse!" She yelled. "Yamato! She told me that I had to work on it over vacation! My parents won't understand! They'll make me do it! I won't be able to change my flight! I probably can't come to Japan to visit now!"

Mimi sniffled in conclusion. There was a long silence on the other end.

"I'm sorry," he murmured in that deep, soothing voice she rarely got to hear.

"I know that I screwed up," she choked out, "but you don't have to…that doesn't mean…"

"I know."

She moaned, clutching her hair. "I don't care about school. I don't care. I don't care. I want to see you. I want to go back to Japan. I don't care I don't care I don't care!!!"

"Meems," he said, with a chuckle, "I know you don't. Look, where are you now?"

"The girls bathroom."

"…you're still in school?"

"I ran out of English and now I'm sitting on one of the toilet seats."

He sighed. She could imagine him sitting on his bed, the light on, running a hand through his perfect blonde hair as he let out that sigh. "Mimi, go back to class. You don't want things to get any worse than they already are."

"But-"

"No buts. Go back, try to remedy the situation with your teacher. If she won't let you off the hook, we'll work something out."

"How?" she sniffled.

"My dad's always out on business, I'm sure he's got enough frequent flier miles for a roundtrip flight to New York."

Mimi blinked. "What do you mean?"

"What do you think I mean?"

"But," she whispered, "but you don't have vacation! You'd be missing a whole week of school!"

She could almost hear him grin.

"I don't care about school."

She smiled, clumsily rubbing the tears away from her eyes. Her makeup was already ruined, there was no longer any point in being dainty. She could feel her heart clench at the words, and had to bite her lip to keep herself from crying all over again.

"Thank you, Yamato," she finally whispered, so softly she didn't know whether he would hear it.

"No problem," he replied. "Now, I'm gonna go, I'm completely wiped. I'll call you when I get up, okay?"

She nodded. "Yeah."

"Love you, Meems."

Stretching her legs, she responded with the biggest smile she could muster.

"Love you, too."

A/N: There you go, a cute little Mimato to hopefully brighten up your day. Review if you feel like it


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